


The Pajama Party Incident

by follow_the_sun



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Firefighter Steve Rogers, Fluff, Human Disaster Clint Barton, M/M, Meet-Cute, Pajamas & Sleepwear, Pizza Rolls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 18:31:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17249279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/follow_the_sun/pseuds/follow_the_sun
Summary: A pajama party goes horribly wrong, then wonderfully right.





	The Pajama Party Incident

“You have to ask,” Natasha says, pointing Bucky in the direction of the fire truck.

“Why do _I_ have to ask?” Bucky demands. He’s exhausted, his hair smells like smoke, and on top of it all, he’s standing outside in the freezing weather with nothing to cover up his pajamas except a gray wool blanket that he can’t even keep from sliding off his shoulders because… well. The answer is kind of in the question, and he knows that before Natasha replies.

“Because it’s _your arm,_ Bucky. Now go.” Natasha gives him a shove, and he takes a step out of self-preservation and almost trips over—oh, God, in all the excitement, he almost forgot about the slippers. He shuts his eyes, takes a deep breath, and marches across the yard to the black SUV parked behind the fire truck that’s blocking most of the tiny yard and street. “Hey,” he calls out to one of the firemen—the guy who seems to be in charge, from what little he’s been able to see. “Hey, excuse me, fire… person, do you know much longer this is gonna take? I kind of—oh,” he says, before he loses his powers of speech entirely.

The Fireman In Charge has just taken off his mask, and he’s absolutely fucking _gorgeous._ Blonde hair, piercingly blue eyes, and God, even as bulky as the fire gear is, his chest and shoulders have got to be _huge_ to fill it out like that. “Yeah?” he says, and then, presumably noticing that Bucky’s knees have gotten dangerously wobbly, “You okay? You need to sit down?”

“No, I’m…” Bucky is going to kill Natasha. He’s going to flat out murder her and that’s all there is to it. “Are we gonna be able to get back in the house soon?” he asks, licking his suddenly dry lips.

“Might be a while until we can confirm that everything’s extinguished and the structure is safe,” says Fireman… no, says _Hot_ Fireman In Charge, “but if you’re getting cold, you can sit in the truck until we’re done.”

“No, I just, uh… okay, there’s no good way to say this.” Bucky just goes for it: “I left my arm on the sofa.”

H.F.I.C. blinks. “Sorry?”

“Amputee.” Bucky twitches the blanket back long enough to show the pinned-up left sleeve of the pajama top. “Prosthetic.” He doesn’t mention the _really_ embarrassing part: the fact that he could get along fine without it if 1) his smoke-smelling hair wasn’t hanging in his face and 2) his only hair tie wasn’t looped around the wrist of the prosthetic arm, which, as mentioned, he left on the sofa. And then he catches H.F.I.C. staring not at the absence of his arm, or even at his shoulder where the prosthetic should connect, but at the print on the pajama top, and he remembers that isn’t the embarrassing part at all.

H.F.I.C. recovers quickly, Bucky will give him that. “Stay right there,” he says, and heads toward the house before Bucky can either tell him to forget it or figure out how to literally sink through the sidewalk and disappear forever. After some length of time between way too long for him to stand there thinking about how humiliating this is and way too short for him to come up with anything to say to make it less of a disaster, H.F.I.C. returns, with Bucky’s arm clutched in his massive firefighting glove. “You want any help with this?” he asks—not like he’s implying that Bucky _needs_ help, like he’s offering out of genuine niceness, and how the hell is this Bucky’s life?

“No, thanks, Nat will help me.” At H.F.I.C’s blink, Bucky clarifies, “Natasha, the redhead who owns the house, she’ll help me. This is her fault. Well, hers and Clint’s and his homemade goddamn pizza rolls which, Jesus, if he’d asked me, I could’ve _told_ him if the recipe card’s smudged, you err on the side of setting the oven to three-fifty, not five-fifty. I didn’t even know the stove could _go_ that high.” He’s babbling; it’s stupid; he sighs, and takes the arm. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” H.F.I.C. is still looking at him, and… well, if Bucky hadn’t been—oh, God, was he really about to say _burned?—_ on too many wrong assumptions before, he might actually think the guy was checking him out. That’s pure wishful thinking, it’s gotta be; there’s no way a guy who looks like that, from the FDNY of all things, would be interested in him at the best of times, much less now, which is decidedly the worst of times. Bucky is just about to turn away when H.F.I.C., sounding almost as embarrassed as Bucky, blurts, “Okay, so I gotta ask. What’s with the outfit?”

Bucky’s face is suddenly so hot that if the house hadn’t already been on fire once tonight, he’d feel like he was in danger of setting it ablaze. “Okay,” he says, “so Natasha, the redhead I mentioned? She and her boyfriend, Clint, they throw these super cheesy themed Friday night hangouts all the time, where we all get together and watch movies. So I get this text from Nat that she’s throwing one tonight, and it’s a cute pajamas party, and I _laughed,_ because I thought it was a _joke,_ but then I got to the door and everybody, including the goddamn _dog,_ is actually, literally wearing pajamas. So Nat says to me, ‘Anybody who doesn’t arrive in pajamas will be issued a set of my choosing,’ and points me toward the guest room to change, and, well… When Nat tells you to do something, you do it, so…”

“So you put on the cute reindeer pajamas,” H.F.I.C says, in a tone that _almost_ convinces Bucky he isn’t about to crack up.

There’s absolutely nothing Bucky can do at this point but double down on it. “Excuse you, fire guy,” he snaps, in the most serious tone he can muster, “the animals on this print are _clearly_ moose.”

“Oh,” H.F.I.C. says, leaning in for a closer look. Jesus, is he actually… no, he _can’t_ be flirting with the guy with smoky hair and, according to the glance he got at his reflection in a car window, a smudge of actual ash on his chin. “I see. The noble and mighty Canadian moose, that’s what that is.”

“Moose are actually pretty fucking scary,” Bucky agrees. “Enormous.”

“Terrifying. And the slippers?”

“Do you know how often people are maimed or killed by innocent-looking pink bunnies?” Bucky asks, deadpan. “Thousands of families suffer each year.”

“Yeah, it’s actually one of the things we teach kids during school visits. Stop, drop, roll, and stay away from the terrifying pink bunnies of doom.” H.F.I.C. suddenly pulls off his glove and holds out his hand. “Fire Chief Steve Rogers.”

“Uh. Fire… survivor… Bucky Barnes,” Bucky says, awkwardly shifting the prosthetic under his right arm so he can offer his own hand to shake. Steve’s hand is blessedly warm, almost as warm as his smile. “So, uh, you probably get this all the time, but—”

“If your sleepover’s ruined, then I guess that means you’re not doing anything later,” Steve interrupts, before he can embarrass himself any more thoroughly. “Buy you a cup of coffee?”

“Well, it would be a shame to waste a look this good on just my stupid friends and their dog,” Bucky agrees, allowing himself a tiny smile. “There’s a pretty good diner down the street.”

“Great,” Steve says. “I’m always starving when I get off shift. What do you recommend?”

Bucky grins, because he can already see exactly how this is going to play out: him and Steve walking into the all-night diner, Steve in street clothes, Bucky still in his moose pajamas and pretending that’s why everybody is staring at him, when he knows it’s really because they’re all wondering how he landed the most gorgeous firefighter in Brooklyn. Maybe it’ll be nothing, but who knows—maybe it won’t. Maybe this disaster will end up being the best thing that’s ever happened to him in his life. And maybe, before too long, they’ll be having a nice, cozy little pajama party of their own.

“Anything but the pizza rolls,” he says, and Steve’s laughter—which is goddamn perfect, just like everything else about him—follows him as he walks back over to Natasha in her rainbow-and-unicorn pajamas and Clint in his even more embarrassing purple Care Bear onesie. Maybe tonight isn’t shaping up to be quite so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> From [a Tumblr prompt:](http://nikkxb.tumblr.com/post/173865520508/i-used-to-work-in-the-lingerie-department-of-a)
>
>> I used to work in the lingerie department of a medium-to-high-end department store and I had a woman come in and tell me this story. She once had a party with a bunch of girlfriends and the theme was they all had to wear cute pajamas. You know that thing moms liked to say– “Always wear clean/cute underwear in case of emergencies”? It was based on that.
>> 
>> Well. Lo and behold, they have a fire at this party. Something happened in the stove and they had to call the fire department. Nobody got hurt and the house was fine, but you have half a dozen women standing outside in super cute pajamas with all these seriously hot firemen taking care of the house. (Multiple numbers were exchanged and one girl dated one of those firefighters for a couple years.)
>> 
>> And I’m just saying
>> 
>> Imagine your OTP.
> 
> Coincidentally, my parents' house burned down this year (it was a lightning strike, not a cooking incident). Everybody was fine and the insurance covered everything, and I found out that firefighters are honestly some of the nicest people on earth, even though I didn't get any of their numbers. But since it happened, we might as well get some fic out of it, yes?
> 
> Thanks to all of you who've read, kudos'd, and commented on my work--you not only keep me going, you keep me smiling. Happy New Year!


End file.
